Week 43, 2021

This week we saw a beer + coworking concept, a huge space goes online (in 2021), a major change in state policy, a lactation suites startup, and more.

🎉 Coworking celebrations.

🎂 TownSq turns 4!

To celebrate they shared a video highlighting the progress over the last year and their new spaces and offerings.

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📰 Coworking updates.

🇫🇷 Paris-based startup campus launches online offering.

Romain Dillet reports in Techcrunch that Station F have launched an online offering to help entrepreneurs from anywhere to get started and learn all the basics to start a company. Roxanne Varza shares why they launched Launch and how it’s peer-supported for entrepreneurs.

Access costs €9.90 p/month and they’re aiming for a target of 10,000 members.

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🍻 Beer, bowling and… coworking?

James Watt shares a teaser of the new 25.6k sqft BrewDog ‘immersive craft beer destination’ at Waterloo Station in London. In the UK the firm is know for their flagship bars and namesake craft beers, but this new location will also feature a brewery, cocktail bar, coffee shop, workspaces & duckpin bowling.

Another sign of the convergence of spaces where humans work + play?

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🐻 First major update to California telework policy in a decade.

John O’Duinn shares California’s first major update to their telework policy in 10 years. This policy affects around 239k employees and contractors, and whilst they do say that departments will ensure teleworkers have the equipment they need to work at alternative sites it doesn’t mention if they’d be allowed/enabled to work from third spaces.

We’ll keep an eye on this, and see if other states will also update their policies.

h/t Jamie Orr for sharing.

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🍼 Lactation suite startup eyes nationwide expansion.

Work & Mother’s lactation suites feature private rooms, hospital-grade pumps, and refrigeration and storage options. They also provide support resources, such as lactation consultants and career coaches, to working mothers who are breastfeeding their babies.

With two existing locations in downtown Houston, and two more launching, the firm has tapped CBRE to help find locations to expand into metro areas like Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Abbey Donnell also shares how these amenities help landlords and employers support new mothers’ return to work.

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🤫 New coworking amenity: libraries?

Atlanta-based Switchboards are piloting a more library-like deep work section of their space. Interesting to see that phone calls, meetings or Zooms will not be allowed. Whilst members weren’t necessarily asked, the decision came from observing what members gravitated to in their previous/existing locations.

These additional spaces are accessible 24/7 and come with a slightly higher price point at $100 p/m.

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🎙 Video or audio-only for your podcasts?

A growing number of coworking spaces are hosting their own podcasts (and offering podcast studios). In this post, Solutium, a digital agency that help produce a number some coworking podcasts, shares the pros/cons of going audio-only or adding video.

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💻 Coworking technology.

🔌 What middleware is, and why it’s important for flex spaces.

With the amount of software, hardware and services available in the flex workspace world exploding, I dig into what middleware (like Syncaroo) is and how it helps to connect all these things together.

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📲 Another partnership give more office workers drop-in access.

This week Graham Beck shares that Office Freedom (a flex space broker) and DropDesk (a booking platforms) have partnered up to to offer membership passes that grant access to a wide network of flexible office spaces.

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📱 Tenant Experience platform adds visitor management system

Lukas Balik shares a video highlighting Spaceflow‘s new VMS, allowing members’ or tenants’ guests to self check-in and access meeting rooms and workspaces.

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📈 Coworking data.

📈 How flex fared, and is set to soar.

CBRE compiled great stats on the shape of the flex workspace market.

They look at how rightsizing lead to a 9.2% drop in flex space supply over 2020 and into 2021, and whilst we saw a closure of 529 locations (or 10.1M sqft) by 144 providers in 40 cities, there were some who continued to expand modestly.

They end the piece sharing 4 positive drivers of flex demand, that may just make flex an integral part of the infrastructure of how humans work.

h/t Jamie Russo and Julie Whelan for sharing.

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🚗 Will ending daily commutes have a major emissions impact?

Peter du Toit shares some facts and figures around just how much emissions could be cut by removing daily commutes.

Whilst Electricity & Heat do make up the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, Transportation comes in second at 11.9% of global emissions.

60% of transportation emissions come from passenger travel like cars, motorcycles and buses.

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☑️ Survey to better understand how people work in coworking spaces.

GCUC and KNow Research are conducting an 8-min (22 question) survey to understand how folks are using coworking spaces, and how networks affect their impact.

They invite you to share it with your members, and have noted that the results will be made public after the survey concludes.

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🕸 The future of work will be an ecosystem of spaces.

Sam Rosen shares some insights from the last year of supporting teams through Deskpass.

Some stats shared are where employees want to work when not booking coworking spaces (spoiler it’s home, then coffee shop, then HQ) and an interesting graph of how many unique spaces their members checked into.

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🚂 If they can… can’t you?

Josef Katz from Kettlespace dissects Amazon‘s shift towards hybrid working (see TWIC #41/21)  and how other companies can also free their employees from almost-insane-looking commuting times.

They share that many who have to come into NYC spend 50+ mins a day commuting in (which is just above 13 HOURS a month, incase you’re counting) and that $758M is spent on commuting in the US, every single day.

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🤝 Coworking market moves.

🤔 President exits just months after launch.

Tom Acitelli shares that Amy Sterner Nelson is no longer the president of SaksWorks, the venture whose launch we covered just 11 weeks ago back in week 32’s newsletter.

The workspace-in-retail-locations venture, which is managed by WeWork, did share a statement that hinted that the role was primarily to help get to market, and with that now done, Amy has moved on to a new venture.

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🇮🇳 18 new franchised locations opening in India

Aayat Ali reports that IWG and Conjoinix have signed a franchise agreement to launch 18 locations in India.

This deal brings the former’s footprint to 130 locations across 25 cities in India, and they’ve expressed interest in meeting even more landlords in the country to explore franchise partnerships with.

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🎟 Coworking deals.

📑 20% lifetime discount on eSignature & document tech.

Paperless are offering coworking space operators and members 20% off their eSignature and document workflow technology. With it you can quickly build beautiful forms, documents and take signatures.

Want to give perks like this to your members? Register for includedPerks today.

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🎙 Coworking conversations.

Jamie Russo and Phil Kirschner (Senior Expert, McKinsey Real Estate and ex-WeWorker) discuss whether your coworking spaces are really ready for enterprise, or corporate, clients.

🎧 Listen to this

Frank Cottle and John Williams (CMO at The Instant Group) discuss how corporate clients are leaning on flexible space more than ever before, and are rejecting larger operators in favour of smaller spaces that can meet niche requirements.

🎧 Listen to this

Liz Elam speaks with Katrina Larkin, co-founder of Fora, about going above and beyond to keep a community alive pre and post pandemic and why it is so crucial to keep the people’s best interests at heart in a workspace environment.

🎧 Listen to this

📆 Coworking events.

📸 Coworking + email marketing.

Oct 29. Coworking Convo dives into email marketing for coworking spaces.

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💼 Coworking jobs.

Find or post coworking jobs for free here.

About This.

ThisWeekInCoworking.com is a weekly newsletter summarizing the coworking celebrations, stories, market moves, tech updates, and discussions you may have missed.

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💫 Who's hiring?

🇺🇸 Bottle Rocket Search are helping hire a General Manager in Denver, Colorado.

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🇦🇺 Hub Australia are hiring a Workspace Experience Manager in Perth, Australia.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Southlake, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Atlanta, Georgia.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Dallas, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Sugar Land, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in The Woodlands, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Forth Worth, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Alpharetta, Georgia.

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